Stephanie Mitchell Smith
Center for Creative LearningGrowing Creative Futures
For generations, Harwood Museum of Art has been a place where Taos residents come together to learn, create, reflect, and connect. With the generous gift of a neighboring property, the museum now has an extraordinary opportunity to open our doors wider with an expanded home for education and community programs.
Harwood Museum of Art.
Banner image courtesy of Anthropopulous Design + Planning
Image Courtesy of Anthropopulous Design + Planning
Vision
With support from Taos MainStreet and Anthropopulous Design + Planning, Harwood conducted eight hours of visioning workshops with community stakeholders in the Spring of 2025. Community members are eager to collaborate on creating accessible, culturally responsive programs and spaces that prioritize serving locals. Transparency, cross-sector partnerships, relevancy, and consistency — both in programming and communication — are key values guiding the development of the site.
The site will amplify Harwood programming, especially programs for youth and local artists, while also providing space for community use. Proposed uses are being filtered through the lens of existing community assets and needs, Harwood Museum Strategic and Campus Master Plans, and sustainability both from fundraising, earned revenue, and human resource capacities.
Proposed Programing
Through the community visioning process, Harwood Museum has identified priority programs for the site, which will require significant renovations to make the space accessible and functional. These include:
- Drop-In studio and workshop spaces for all ages. Spread across two studios, one dedicated to dry materials that can be converted into a lecture/classroom space and one dedicated to messy materials. These will be used to augment existing Harwood Education Programs serving youth and family audiences, especially during out-of-school learning times like breaks, after-school, and summer. The spaces will also be made available for local artists to rent for their own workshops or programs.
- Educator resource library featuring books, materials, and other resources to support teachers, teaching artists, and families to learn about arts education and their teaching practice. This will compliment Harwood’s Teacher Professional Development programs.
- Artist co-working studio spaces including a photo studio with lighting equipment and design software to support emerging local artists with portfolio and e-commerce development.
- Residential apartments for visiting artists, scholars, interns, and other creative professionals, serving both Harwood and community partners. Harwood is considering an Artist-in-Residence program focused on local artists.
- Staff offices + community meeting spaces including hybrid meeting technology.
- Artist pigment garden and outdoor classrooms that are functional and beautiful.
Timeline
Phase 1: Visioning
February 2025 – September 2026
Phase 2: Strategic Improvements
July 2025 – December 2026
Phase 3: Initial Activation
July 2026 – June 2027
Phase 4: Full Renovation
July 2027 – June 2029
Resources
Contact Us
For questions about the Center for Creative Learning and Harwood Education, contact Gwendolyn Fernandez, Curator of Education + Public Programs, at education@harwoodmuseum.org.
For questions about how to support our programs, contact Tricia Soule, Director of Development, at development@harwoodmuseum.org.
Support Education and Community Programs
Donations of any amount help us provide impactful art education experiences, engage community in public programs, and improve facilities – while giving us the flexibility to meet our community’s changing needs. For an event bigger impact, you can make a named gift to the endowment to support programming or name a space at the Center for Creative Learning. Contact Tricia Soule, Director of Development, at development@harwoodmuseum.org.
We sincerely appreciate the support from the following:
Stephanie Smith and Family, University of New Mexico, State of New Mexico, New Mexico MainStreet, Anthropopulous Design + Planning, Henry Architects, Ria Burnett, and several individual supporters.
